After a thorough search (i.e., five minutes of Googling), I couldn’t find a source that laid out his position on the previous debt limit crisis in (I think) 2011. My sense (my prejudice, really) is that he’s a complete phony and (certainly at some point in his smarmy past) pretended that using hostage-taking (by Republicans) against Democratic presidents was a righteous, if not holy, act. Does anyone recall his earlier defenses of such tactics?
I don’t think his summary is unfair
The thrust of that POLITICO piece from 2011 seems to be
a) that playing chicken with the debt limit is an OK negotating tactic
and b) that Obama is running up the national debt, as all politicians do.
Also C) that smart people like Joe Scarborough understand that we MUST reduce the national debt NOW!!!
As to point B), it’s my understanding that under Democratic administrations, the debt tends to come down, and that Obama cut it in half, while it tends to skyrocket under GOP Presidents, mainly Bush and Trump, though the GOP refuses to recognize such trends.
The debit comes down (but is still usually positive) under Democrats. But as long as the debit is positive, the debt always increases.
I thought Clinton came into office with a Reagan-Bush I debt, left office with a surplus, and Bush II’s war ran it up, Obama cut Bush’s deficit in half, and under Trump, it went way way up.
He left with a budget surplus, yes. But the debt was still huge (about $5.6 trillion).
In fact, the last time the U.S. debt was paid off, Andrew Jackson was president. (It resulted in a recession)
Scarborough admits that his past debt fighting positions were a waste of time. He has realized that his party at the time was not sincere about their goals and motives, that there was not going to be any serious effort to reduce the debt or deficit spending. I’m ok with someone who can admit their mistakes and change their mind.
Not that he gives a rat’s patoot about what I think of him, but I have trouble being okay with someone who was wrong about almost everything and changes his mind about a sliver of it but never acknowledges publicly that he was so dreadfully wrong and maybe he should shut his big mouth much more often than he does. Can you find me of him speaking about how wrong he was for years and years and decades, and loud wrong too?
Try this for starters:
Joe Scarborough: ‘I was proven wrong!’ Liberals were right about his former Republican Party.
I’d like it if every “Morning Joe” began with that clip.
So then, it turns out you were wrong about Joe.
Yes, I was wrong to suggest that he never acknowledged how wrong he was. Now has he considered what that implies about all the rest of his thinking for decades, and who he was defending so ardently, and who he was so ruthlessly and viciously attacking?
If you watch his show you’ll find those things. I think his enlightenment should be celebrated as an example for other conservatives who need to come in from the cold. I don’t think he’s turned into any kind of raging liberal but he’s on the right side now, far more tolerable to me than some contemporary liberal icons.
Maybe he says these things on the air when I’m fast-forwarding through his lengthy monologues. He’s conditioned me over the years to despise his voice, his outlook, his obnoxiousness, his self-centeredness, his repetition, his non-stop interrupting of his betters. Maybe he’s a humble saint during the minutes that I rush over his talking head to listen to someone–anyone!–else.
I came in to set you straight about his current politics. I’m not gonna help him out in the personality department. You should move on to the next intolerable blowhard, there’s no shortage of them.